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A Day of Action also a day of calm

Posted by Scott Tribe on June 30, 2007, at 10:08 am |

Well, despite the blockades in some areas, yesterday’s Native Day Of Action went without any major conflicts. I would say this is to the various police forces credit – they decided not to take a confrontational approach, so we had no Oka-type scenarios anywhere. That attitude was in contrast to some of our right-wing blogosphere colleagues, who when they were not making derogatory statements about the First Nations peoples, were calling for the army and/or riot police to be sent in against “Native terrorists”. Thank goodness these people aren’t the ones making decisions on this – they would have had this country up in flames yesterday if it was up to them.

Obviously, illegal activities can’t be condoned, and one would rather not see civil disobedience, (though there is a place for that, as Ghandi and Martin Luther King demonstrated) but overall, the police knew better then to make a mountain out of a molehill, so credit to them. And, the natives made their point peacefully as well.

The burden is on this Conservative government to do something to address First Nations concerns (ie. the fact a lot of these Native Reserves still don’t have running water or clean drinking water is a disgrace to Canada). Specifically, this government is the one who canceled the Kelowna Accord, so the onus is on them to come up with something better, if they think Kelowna was a bad deal.

5 comments to A Day of Action also a day of calm

Wideye, I share your sentiments regarding the resolution of the issues, once and for all.
Scott, re: your email to the embassy – good for you. The reason I don't link to the CPoC on my blog is because my support for the party doesn't mean I speak for it. RG neglected to take that into account regarding Canadian Angels, which is too bad because it is a worthwhile cause IMHO.

However, I agree with Wideye – the Aboriginal issues are not partisan, they are Canadian. I have a friend that works on the Aboriginal file in the AB gov't and he is quite heartened with the current gov't approach. Apparently meetings with them now have value compared to the previous 2 decades he's been involved (which would cover govts on both sides of the political spectrum).

Oldschool – I took the day off to attend the day of protest and I don’t get paid for when I take a day off. I only get paid for the hours I work so I don’t qualify for sick days, or volunteers days, or family days. I collect no additional health benefits or retirement benefits for the work I do and I don’t earn an outragious salary.? I have no regrets to have invested my time that day in a march with 3000 other like minded people.

But Scott, this is not a political party issue – so please don’t say the burden is on the? CPoC party to do something.? These issues have been festering for to long to blame any one political party and this is not a burden to be given to a political party to fix.??

This “burden” has many faces and they are our many friends, relatives, brothers and sisters.? We work towards a time when this burden can rest on our shoulders instead of our hearts – and that time would come faster if the original Treaties were honoured and the natural resources of this land were shared? as was originally agreed to.

You go oldschool. When done with the natives lets go after a groupt that get about $4 billion to service 246,920 people…and when they block the roads and highways, they ought to be arrested or, as some of your Conservative compatriots believe, surrounded and shot.

Except of course, all those guys are white and they are farmers and one of the guys that actually conceived of and led an identical protest – blocking the 401 and the downtown cores of both Toronto and Ottawa with tractors and chasing government officials off of "their land" – is now running as a Conservative candidate in the next federal election. Yes, I'm talking about Randy Hillier and the Lanark Landowners Association.

Oh wait, it I don't remember oldschool or his ilk getting upset when all that happened last summer. Hmm, same tactics, same result but oldschools and the right think that farmers doing it is ok but that natives doing it is not.

I guess the only conclusion I can draw is that oldschool and his fellow travelers at SDA are slack-jawed racist idiots who need to have their ignorance pointed out to them.

And let me preempt your first obvious counter argument. Since the Royal Proclamation of 1763, all negotiations between Britain and then Canada were between sovereign nations. No native tribe, nation, band or group in Canada has ever been conquered or surrendered their rights. When the Canadian government needed access for a railway line, they negotiated a treaty or agreement that honoured the natives title to the land and granted access to the Government. All such agreements were between Regina (the Queen) and the band, not the government. Two sovereign nations. And the Canadian government then proceeded to assert authority over land it did not have title to, selling it and calling it "Crown Land" and then asserting dominance over natives via things like the Indian Act.

And from that we got Oka, Ipperwash, Caledonia, the Lubicon and any number of other incidents.

So, if you read the history and understand the law, it is, in fact, their land, just as much as a farm is the farmer's land. And they can defend it any way they deem necessary. Wouldn't you?

If you ask, most natives don't want "hand outs" or "welfare", they want to be sovereign their own territory and they want the Government, representing Regina (the Queen) to live up to its signed contracts and agreements. They don't want Ottawa telling them what to do, they want to make those decisions for themselves. And if it is not possible to get this, because the land is now gone (for example Parliament Hill is on land that was never ceded by the Algonquins, it was taken by the Feds) then they should be compensated. You would expect no less if it happened to you.

Oh an BTW, most of that $10 billion is used to support an almost entirely white civil service in Ottawa that enforces the Indian Act to oppress those 700,000 people. Almost none of it goes to natives. As if they asked for it.

So, you can either learn the facts or continue to be a racist prick, hiding behind the "it costs too much" argument. Your choice.

In a way I am surprised that Oldschool is willing to come up with these facts.

If you feel that all these money poured in does not work, maybe you should listen to the advice of that right wing thinker, Paul Fromm. I will not post what Fromm said on Scott's blog, because it would be too suggestive and may be too influential to others.

I wonder how many of our Native friends had to take a day off work to attend the gatherings???
The problems that exist today have been with us since the 60’s, but 40 years of liberalism did almost nothing!!!
The concept of 700,000 people absorbing the best part of 10 BILLION dollars a year is mind boggling . . .